LONAP's BLOG

The Project

The ‘Land of Nineveh
Archaeological Project’ (LoNAP), initiated in 2012 by the Italian
Archaeological Mission to Assyria of the University of Udine,
directed by Prof. Daniele Morandi Bonacossi, aims to reconstruct the
formation and transformation of the cultural and natural landscapes
of this central region of Northern Mesopotamia and to provide for
their protection and management in innovative ways.

The research is based on a
regional archaeological field survey, combined with the
archaeological excavation of the site of Tell Gomel which will
begin in the forthcoming field season, and a
geo- and bio-archaeological reconstruction of the ancient natural
landscape and its evolution as a result of global climatic
fluctuations and human impact.

The region studied by the
project encompasses more than 2900 km2 and consists of the area
delimited by the plain of Dohuk and the Northern Iraqi foothills to
the north, the lake formed by the Eski Mosul Dam to the west, the
plain extending to the Jebel Maqloub and the Bardarash region to the
south and the River Al-Khazir to the east.

This region, which has never
been the object of systematic and interdisciplinary exploration, with
the only notable exception of the rescue excavations conducted in the
Upper Iraqi Tigris Valley between 1981 and
1986 during the construction of the Eski Mosul Dam, has played
a key role in the cultural dynamics that have affected Northern
Mesopotamia from prehistoric times until the Islamic
ages and was crossed by the important overland trade route linking
the Iranian plateau with the Upper Tigris, the Khabur and Euphrates
Valleys and the Northern Levant. The Iraqi Upper Tigris Basin also
played a strategic role in commercial and military transit, since it
controlled access to the highland regions rich in resources
(obsidian, copper, timber and also horses during the Iron
Age) of the Turkish Upper Tigris and connected them to the core area
of Mesopotamian Civilization.

Land of Nineveh
Archaeological Project location in relation to the other
Regional Surveys